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MILAN — U.S. figure skating phenom Ilia Malinin, the heavy favorite for Olympic gold, finished far off the podium in 8th place on Friday, after a shocking series of stumbles and falls.
It was another 21-year-old, first-time Olympian who claimed that prize: Mikhail Shaidorov of Kazakhstan.
Malinin, 21, was seen as a lock since he hasn’t lost a major competition since 2023. He held a comfortable five-point lead heading into the free skate, one that was only expected to grow with his signature stack of quadruple jumps.
But when he finally took the ice, the last skater of the night to do so, he fell twice and downgraded many of his planned moves. He was expected to be the first skater to land a quadruple axel on Olympic ice; instead he switched it to a single axel.
“The nerves just were so overwhelming, and especially going into that starting post, I just felt like all the traumatic moments of my life really just started flooding my head … and I just did not handle it,” Malinin said after.
Malinin ended the night with 264.49 points. Shaidorov’s final score was 291.58.
The silver and bronze medals both went to members of the Japanese team, Yuma Kagiyama and Shun Sato.
This is a developing story. It will be updated.